Mommy **** (2014, Anne Dorval, Antoine-Olivier Pilon, Suzanne Clément) – Movie Review

Writer-director Xavier Dolan’s Mommy is such a scaldingly brilliant, brave, bold movie! The acting by the three principals is amazing. It is the official submission of Canada to the 87th Academy Awards foreign film award.

Antoine-Olivier Pilon is incredible as Steve Després, the teenage boy totally out of control and with a far-too-close interest in his widowed single mother, who is desperately trying to raise her violent 15-year old son alone and look after him, in her weird, dysfunctional sort of way.

Brilliant though he is, Anne Dorval is unforgettable as Diane ‘Die’, the 46-year-old mother from hell, or maybe it’s from heaven, it’s not certain. ‘Die’ institutionalised Steve after her husband’s death because of Steve’s attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and his violent outbursts, not to mention his advanced Oedipus complex.

And as if that weren’t enough, Suzanne Clément is astonishing as Kyla, the weird, mysterious,  stuttering, speech-challenged neighbour who tries to help the desperate duo and inserts herself into their household, prompting new hope for the mother.

It’s so much better than Dolan’s 2013 film Tom at the Farm that it’s almost impossible to believe. The dialogue and the direction are just out of this world, with Dolan bravely going for a narrow screen format for most of the movie (apart from a couple of brief moments late on when it opens to widescreen) and piling on unmissable scene after scene in a two hour 20 minute epic. It’s a true original, and a great one.

It’s already his fifth movie and actor-director Dolan is only 26.

By an odd coincidence both Pilon and Dolan are 5′ 6½” or 1.69 metres high.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Movie Review

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com/

Canadian Wunderkind Dolan.